Forest Ranger Families Program
Solution types
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Where the program was applied
Country of application
Description

This program offers a conditional economic transfer aimed at encouraging families to seek alternative options to the cultivation of plants used for the production of illegal psychotropic substances. This way, socially vulnerable rural families are encouraged to support themselves by participating in the legal economy.
The program also encourages beneficiary families to save and become landowners by promoting the formation of cooperatives and community associations.
Every two months, each family, represented by a person over the age of 14, preferably a female head of the household, receives the incentive in the program’s savings bank accounts. Initially, the incentive was 5 million Colombian pesos per year (phases I and II), offered for three years, including the obligation to save a portion; then it was increased to 3.6 million Colombian pesos per year (phase V), offered for one and a half years, without mandatory savings. Both families that have been involved in illicit crops and families that have not had that experience are eligible.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed that program participation decreases the homicide rate during phases I and II, while the effect is not significant in phases III and IV, when the economic incentive given to families decreases [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Martínez Gutiérrez, C. (2008). Impacto del Programa Familias Guardabosques Sobre la Criminalidad (Documentos CEDE núm. 26). Bogotá. Facultad de Economia - Universidad de los Andes. https://www.unodc.org/documents/colombia/2013/Agosto/DA2013/Sembramosya…

Information source